The Edmonton Oilers and "Character"

For the most part, Steve Tambellini has been consistent on most points as a general manager. One may or may not agree with his organizational philosophy as a whole, but he does have some that are clear and distinct.

More recently [the Red Wings have] been able to build a team around some real good players – not only good players, but great players. The difference between star players and great players is that great players are great people, too, whereas star player are just star players.

Tambellini’s public stance on this does not differ from Lowe’s, and his recent press conference helped drive that point home. Asked about what’s commonly known as the “Russian factor,” Tambellini explained what it is he looks for in a first overall draft pick:

I’m aware of it but I’m not going to let that taint or skew my opinion. I think most importantly you have to understand the person and understand what makes him tick. Why the person has had success. What are his priorities in life? Is the National Hockey League his ultimate goal? Is winning the Stanley Cup his ultimate goal? I said when I spoke to Taylor Hall and got to know him that when you listen to him as a young man that hasn’t played a game in the National Hockey League, he told me he was the first pick. He was very comfortable talking about that. So a first pick overall playing in a Canadian market has to have special qualities, the maturity, the confidence, the ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to be that player, I’m not worried about being that player.’ And the same thing happened with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, in a different way. His poise came through, that he was not fazed by anything when you spoke to him. And you all speak to him, and he’s a humble, thoughtful young man that is confident beyond his years but in a great way. He exudes leadership. That’s what you have to find out. You have to find out, these players whether they come from Russia, from Sweden, from the U.S., from Canada, really what makes them tick.

Tambellini isn’t just saying this; he really believes it. One of the more revealing exchanges on the last season of Oil Change was between Tambellini and his scouts at last year’s draft – he made a specific point to ask about character before the team decided on their second round pick. This is something the organization really values.

It isn’t something unique to the Oilers either, and with good reason. A player’s drive has a huge impact on his ability to have a professional career. It’s something that a lot of teams prioritize.

After writing about a player meeting between the San Jose Sharks’ scouting staff and the then-undrafted Kirill Kabanov (Kabanov would eventually be taken by the New York Islanders in the third round of the 2010 Draft), Shane Malloy explains the purpose of those sorts of meetings in his book The Art of Scouting:

Some people wonder why NHL scouting staffs have these meetings in the first place, when all they need to do is read the player’s psychology report. These meetings are valuable for scouting departments because they provide an opportunity to see some of the prospect’s personality, intelligence and character… Additionally, some teams think that a kid can [BS] a psychology test but not a room full of experienced scouts… The team is genuinely trying to get a read on the player as a person and is not going to serve up any trick questions, as might happen in a regular job interview.

The question is whether or not a team really can talk to a 17- or 18-year old and divine his character based on the conversations. Tambellini mentions his conversations with Hall and Nugent-Hopkins as examples of him doing precisely that. Most teams do something similar.

Despite what Malloy writes above with regard to regular job interviews, the unstructured meeting between a group of scouts and a prospect is not terribly uncommon. The book Sway – The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour quotes Dr. Allen Huffcutt – who has a Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology and whose primary area of research is the job interview – on the unstructured interview. Hestates that across all industries the “unstructured interview format is by far the most dominant form of applicant selection.”

Does it do a good job of identifying which candidates are best for jobs?

No. Huffcutt states that there’s a long history of research supporting the fact that job interviews typically don’t identify the best-suited candidates. As Sway’s authors, Ori and Rom Brafman explain, “[t]he marks managers give job candidates have very little to do with how well those candidates actually perform their jobs.” People know how to answer questions like ‘Why should I hire [or draft] you?’ and ‘How would you describe yourself?’ People come back with nice-sounding answers when asked what they want to do in five years – or what they need to do over the summer to improve for next season. Their ability to answer the question gives little insight into what they’ll actually do. Yet, these sorts of interviews persist. Again, from Sway:

“Although everyone from the lowliest worker to the CEO knows that these performance charades are going on, hiring managers are attracted to the first-date [or unstructured] format, thinking that a good conversation will allow their instincts to guide them to the right candidate. “There is a strong feeling,” Huffcutt explained, “that you can’t achieve accuracy in selection without going through the interview.”

Why?

“Everybody thinks they have this ability to see an applicant and make a great decision, truly understand them,” explained Huffcutt. “Everybody thinks they can do that and that’s part of the problem. It’s hard to convince somebody that they’re not doing as well as they think.”

The solution to the problem is to move away from the unstructured format, asking questions strictly related to a candidates capabilities and their specific, concrete ideas that directly relate to the job they’re taking. Huffcutt’s analysis shows that sort of interview is six times better than the unstructured interview – the sort of interview preferred by many, if not most, NHL scouts. But even that isn’t necessary, as Sway explains:

Research shows that an aptitude test predicts performance just as well as a structured interview.

That’s the problem with Steve Tambellini going up in front of the press and explaining that he can sit down and listen to a prospective draft pick and understand “what makes him tick.” Look at the questions he specifically cites – “What are his priorities in life? Is the National Hockey League his ultimate goal? Is winning the Stanley Cup his ultimate goal?” – if a draft prospect doesn’t know enough to say in as convincing a fashion as possible that the Stanley Cup is the only thing that matters in his career, he’s hopelessly stupid. They’re questions with one basic correct answer, and the interviewee knows it just as well as the interviewer does.

Then again, this isn’t a problem confined to just the Oilers, or to hockey in general. It’s a common mistake made by the vast majority of people in positions to evaluate job or draft candidates.

Tim Burke, who runs the San Jose Sharks scouting department, and has generally done a good job for them over the last decade and a half, does these unstructured interviews with his scouts. Yet, as he told Malloy:

I don’t think scouts know whether the kid is going to be a leader or wants to be a leader until he is maybe 23 or 24.

Age and relative maturity are factors. More important, though, is the fact that a manager can’t sit down to dinner with a candidate or hold a Q&A in his office to divine his character. It takes time, just as it does with a new hire in the workplace. Scouts, to their credit, talk to coaches and teammates and billets and whoever else they can find to get insight into a player’s character. Even then, however, Burke advises caution:

Sometimes players get railroaded early on, with one coach saying he isn’t a great kid, and then four years later everyone says he’s a leader.

I don’t believe in hearsay. I don’t believe in going on what other people think – ‘This player is a bad character’ or ‘This player is this.’ I want to make sure I know. If you’re a scout, don’t come and tell me he’s a bad person, unless you know he’s a bad person from your own experience – not because you heard it from somebody else. I’m from that school. I give the benefit of the doubt unless there’s no doubt. Shame on you the first time; shame on me the second time.

In short, that’s the problem with relying on character as a touchstone for determining whether a player is a good fit for a given organization: an opinion formed in the short-term (such as in an unstructured interview) often has little relation to what truly happens down the road, and an opinion based on the comments of others involves outsourcing judgment to third parties.

That’s why I cringe when I hear managers making assessments based on the character of players that haven’t played for them in the past: it’s not that character doesn’t matter, it’s that it’s very difficult to assess without first-hand knowledge gained over time.

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